The highlights of tonight’s third-season premiere of
Key & Peele are the return of the anger translator and a brilliant takeoff on the film
version of
Les Miserables.

The latter is so beautifully detailed that it might actually take you a second to realize that
the sketch is a satire and the lyrics aren’t what you think they are.

In fact, the
Les Miz sketch is so good it might put older viewers in mind of the immortal movie-takeoff
sketches engineered on the old
Carol Burnett Show.

The two open the show by acknowledging that a lot has happened between seasons and they’ll have
to catch up with some news events. There is no dialogue at all in the opening sketch, a commentary
on the Trayvon Martin case.

It might be tempting to compare Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele to traditional comic duos,
with one guy as the straight man and the other as the joke machine. But Key and Peele are equal
partners in every sketch.

Yes, Key is the bald one, but that doesn’t mean he’s any more likely to be wearing a wig in a
sketch than is Peele.

Their timing is always perfect, as evidenced in the anger- translator routines, in which Peele
delivers a credible approximation of President Barack Obama’s cool, ever-moderate speaking style
while Key swoops, hollers, flaps his arms and spews ’h ood-tinged invective behind him to tell
viewers what the president is really saying.

In truth, Peele seemed to make more of an obvious effort in the show’s first season to mimic
Obama’s pauses and “aahs” than he does now, but he still gets the point across. Even if the subject
of a particular presidential address is no longer current, the sketches still work. (I’m going to
miss the anger-translator sketches after Obama leaves office.)

The substitute-teacher routine is also back, as is poor A-Aron, the pudgy student whose name is
aggressively mispronounced — as are those of his white suburban classmates — by substitute Mr.
Garvey (Key), who spent 19 years teaching in the “inner city,” he says. He insists that the name “
Jacqueline” is pronounced “J-Quellen” and “Blake” is “B-Laka.” And, of course, Aaron is A-Aron.

Key & Peele has been nominated for its first Emmy. It’s in the sexy category of
outstanding makeup for a multi-camera series or special (non-prosthetic).

No, that isn’t a joke, nor is the fact that, if you go to
www.emmys.com, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences can’t
seem to find a photo of Key and Peele to go with the list of nominees in the category.

Here’s an idea, guys: Next time you auto-dial Neil Patrick Harris — perfectly acceptable and
very funny Emmy host though he is — think about calling Key and Peele instead. It might help when
you are sitting around scratching your head about why TV programming is so out of touch with the
21st century.